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By Bulldog Drummond
It is with extreme trepidation, and a fair amount of sitting under my desk with a laptop that I have agreed to write a preview concerning Nottingham Forest v Arsenal, which of course is being played tomorrow. For unlike those commentators who get things utterly wrong but carry on as if they were right and reality was in error, and those who resort to platitudes, stock phrases, truisms and downright triteness, I must admit, I got the West Ham game wrong in every regard. Arsenal’s home record, West Ham’s away record and the referee’s overall record all pointed to a home win, and as you might recall (although I am trying to forget) we got the opposite.
Of course, most commentators don’t look back at their errors, for the simple reason that they focus on transfer predictions and as we showed over four or five summer transfer windows the highest ever evel of accuracy in terms of transfers the highest rate of accuracy ever achieved in the summer transfer window activity is three percent. Two percent is more normal.
But journalists never admit their absolute inability to predict, and football goes on, and so we have a game to preview. Thus we shall glory in the fact that at least we can admit when we have got it wrong, unlike most commentators, and then try again… Here is the current home and away table comparison (data from 11v11).
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Nottingham Forest home | 12 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 22 | 10 | 12 | 24 |
| 2 | Arsenal away | 13 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 24 | 12 | 12 | 25 |
So Arsenal have one more point but have played one more game. On this home v away measure the goal difference of the two clubs is identical. It suggests a draw.
There is however a spot more hope in terms of the last six games table which shows Arsenal’s current form being significantly better than the Forest’s even with the last game included (data from The Fishy).
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 12 | 5 | +7 | 13 |
| 12 | Nottingham Forest | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 15 | 14 | +1 | 7 |
But hidden away in the data is a bit of a warning to Arsenal, and that can be found by looking at Forest’s last six home games, five of which have been won and only one drawn. In these games they have scored 15 goals and conceded four. This makes it look like a really tough game for Arsenal.
And yet there is something very highly erratic and odd about the Forestesian results of late Going back just a few days over a month, there was a squeak past Southampton at home 3-2 (and Southampton remember have only won one away game all season, and drawn just two). Then there was a 5-0 thumping by Bournemouth away.
That was followed by Forest beating Brighton and Hove (who although not a top six club are not a bottom six club either) by seven goals to nil.
Amazing stuff you may think, and Arsenal surely in trouble tomorrow, but after that came the FA Cup game away to Exeter of League One, which although the tree dwellers won in extra time was poised at 2-2 after 90 minutes. So a bit of squeezing through at that point, but then this was rounded off by two away defeats in the last ten days – to Fulham and Newcastle, each by the odd goal.
It’s all a bit up and down – which presumably is something that Edu will sort out now he is there (although I am not sure if he is actually working with Forest yet, or still touring Europe looking at players and tactics).
But we can conclude that Forest can be a bit of an up and down team, although that should not hide from us the fact that this is a case of second against third. A defeat for Arsenal will not change Arsenal’s position in second place since Forest are six points behind Arsenal, but it won’t do morale much good…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 27 | 19 | 7 | 1 | 64 | 26 | 38 | 64 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 26 | 15 | 8 | 3 | 51 | 23 | 28 | 53 |
| 3 | Nottingham Forest | 26 | 14 | 5 | 7 | 44 | 33 | 11 | 47 |
What we really, really need is an uplift after Saturday’s outing, and for the source of that we need to have a look at the team – which of course we will come to shortly.
